Ecova Signs the National Climate Declaration

Jana Schmidt, President & CEO, Ecova

With the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP21) due to commence in Paris next week, there has been much healthy debate taking place in the business world about the impacts of climate change on our environment, certainly—but also on our societies and economic systems at large.

I am proud to announce that Ecova has signed the National Climate Declaration, a call to action from over 1,200 leading American businesses urging the public, policymakers and business leaders to seize the economic opportunity in tackling climate change. The purpose of the Climate Declaration is to demonstrate strong business support from highly credible American brands for taking action on climate change and to champion innovative actions already taking place within American companies (go here to read the full declaration and to see other companies that have signed).

By signing, we are joining together with leading brands across the country to emphasize the economic and societal opportunities inherent in addressing climate change. We believe that organizations will benefit by lowering resource consumption use and embracing sustainable principles—not only reducing environmental impact but also in turn increasing returns, lowering risks and enhancing reputations. This ethic is at the core of our business model: Ecova has been helping companies with efficient resource management for nearly 20 years. In 2014 alone, we saved our Facility clients $800 million in resource expenses, and nearly 19 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy for our Utility clients (bringing our full total for the last 11 years to 108 TWh of energy savings).

As outlined in our annual Corporate Responsibility Report and Ecova’s CDP 2015 Climate Change Response, we’re committed to mitigating our own carbon footprint as much as possible as well. At Ecova, corporate responsibility is not only our duty as good corporate citizens, it is vital to our business. We embrace the same solutions we offer to our clients to save resources and demonstrate our commitment to our underlying principles. We know from experience that healthy employees, clients, communities and environments each make the other—and the company at its core—stronger. I’m excited to share that our most recent response to CDP has earned us a Disclosure Score of 95 and a Performance Band Score of B—a score that demonstrates our commitment to mitigating our own impact, and one that we are extremely proud of.

TAKE ACTION

We urge other American businesses to take this stand as well. As stated in the Declaration, “Tackling climate change is one of America’s greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century (and it’s simply the right thing to do).” Learn more by visiting www.climatedeclaration.us.